Undisovered Amerindians

In order to address the widespread practice of human displays, Fusco and Gomez-Peña enclosed their own bodies in a ten-by -twelve-foot cage and presented themselves as two previously unknown "specimens representative of the Guatinaui people" in the performance piece "Undiscovered Amerindians." Inside the cage Fusco and Peña outfitted themselves in outrageous costumes and preoccupied themselves with performing equally outlandish "native" tasks. Gomez-Peña was dressed in an Aztec style breastplate, complete with a leopard skin face wrestler's mask. Fusco, in some of her performances, donned a grass skirt, leopard skin bra, baseball cap, and sneakers. She also braided her hair, a readily identifiable sign of "native authenticity."

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Guillaume Bijl - Another Introduction

‘Where as Marcel Duchamp proclaimed single objects to be readymades, you have promoted entire environments to this status – environments reconstructed by you and recognizable as such: a driving school, a fallout shelter an auction house, and many more.’ - From Letter to Guillame Bijl, in Guillaume Bijl: Installations and Compostitions, S.M.A.K. Gent, 2008. P 7.

'If you haven’t been to Europe, you’re saying, “What’s the danged deal with this thing that looks like a toilet, but isn’t?”Well, it’s called a bidet – pronounced “bee-day,” sort of like birthday only different. And what we’re seeing is a work of art entitled “Bidet Museum,” which of course isn’t a real museum, because face it, if it were, who would go to it?

It’s actually this dude’s own work of art, and in fairness he didn’t just drag in a bunch of old bidets. There are the red walls as well, and if you look closely there are pictures of women taped over them. So there’s lots to think about'. - From Babe, can we skip this museum?at